Doctor Who_ Companion Piece - Mike Tucker [0]
ISBN: 1-903889-26-X (standard hardback)
Companion Piece © 2003 Mike Tucker & Robert Perry
Foreword © 2003 Revd Colin Midlane
Icon © 2003 Nathan Skreslet
ISBN: 1-903889-27-8 (deluxe hardback)
Companion Piece © 2003 Mike Tucker & Robert Perry
Foreword C 2003 Revd Colin Midlane
Icon C 2003 Nathan Skreslet
Frontispiece C 2003 Allan Bednar
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whirr of K9 in the distance, stumbling over the stones — wretched dog! — and
Romana, coming to the rescue. I sink down into the deck-chair, enveloped
not by a long scarf but by the heat and swirling sea mist. Clutching the text of Companion Piece, I drift away, into the future and the Doctor's seventh incarnation.
Companion Piece intrigues me. Both Doctor Who and 'religion' have always intrigued me. One of the two has never failed to entrance, inspire and enthral me, and give me joy.
Some of my favourite Doctor Who stories are still the early historical ones, such as The Aztecs or The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, where religion and politics were driving forces. In some other stories religious groups became too much of a cliché: robed and cowled men (never unrobed women) chanting, sacrificing virgins, their psychic energy awaking ancient, long-dormant alien beings.
In Companion Piece religion comes in with a bang! No one expects the Holy Inquisition! And, of course, to make the Church the villain is a good hook. After all, 'bad' perverted religion still sells newspapers, whereas 'good' religion rarely makes the press. To describe this book as a religious story would be an instant turn-off, but Robert Perry and Mike Tucker have succeeded in creating a Roman Catholic culture in the
28th century which resonates with popular knowledge of that tradition
today and builds on our reaction to it. This novella breaks new ground
for Doctor Who because it raises so many explicitly theological questions.
Many of these questions are voiced by new companion Cat and are
ones that most of us ask at some point. In my experience, most people,
althoughperhaps uninterested in organised religion, are fascinated by
the ultimate spiritual questions, looking for the meaning or purpose of
life itself. So Cat asks how we can have faith when we see so much evil.
W hat happens after death? Is there such a thing as a 'soul'? This may
lead us on to other, equally basic questions, such as what it means to be human. Is 'God' interested in other, non-human beings? W hat value has the life of a dolphin or an alien being . . . or a Cyberman?
Books of Christian doctrine (and of other faiths) attempt to provide answers to some of Cat's questions,